World Health Organisation 'must reform' to cope with pandemics like Zika

A health worker fumigates to combat the Zika virus at a cemetery on the outskirts of Lima, Peru (Reuters)

The World Health Organization’s emergency response capabilities are “lacking” and will put thousands of lives at risk if they are not reformed now, a high-level United Nations panel convened in the wake of the Ebola crisis said.

“This may be the last opportunity to ensure the WHO is empowered” to build an effective emergency response capacity, warned an advance unedited copy of the UN panel’s report, made available online over the weekend in a link on the UN’s daily Journal website.

“The high risk of major health crises is widely underestimated and... the world’s preparedness and capacity to respond is woefully insufficient,” the report said. “If the WHO does not successfully reform, the next major pandemic will cause thousands of otherwise preventable deaths. If the WHO does not successfully reform, the next major pandemic will cause thousands of otherwise preventable deaths.”

The UN report, Protecting Humanity from Future Health Crises, is the latest in a series of reviews by global health experts which have been critical of the WHO’s response to the devastating Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

With all eyes now focused on the response to the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been reported in 33 countries, the agency is under even more scrutiny. WHO chiefs have previously promised to act swiftly on reforming the agency’s emergency responses.

Reuters